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Jackie's Journal
(Player: James Beech, GM: Phil, Tuesday Mar. 10th) Friday June 26, 2015 Chicago, IL USA Well, I'm still alive. I mean obviously I am, because I'm writing in this journal. But given the kind of day it was, this seems worth mentioning. I woke up this morning in a motel somewhere outside of Omaha. Vegas and I set out from Nevada yesterday as soon as we got word about those killings in Chicago. It turns out you can't drive all the way to Chicago in a day though, even if you're Vegas. I can't drive yet, not legally, though Vegas had started teaching me. They don't care about legal. Anyway, Vegas shook me awake while it was still dark out and we were in Chicago in time for lunch. It's a really big city, with lots of people and noises and smells. Rollo didn't like it much. He's always trying to watch everything at once, just in case it turns out to be something dangerous to me. He didn't like it even more when it turned out one of the other hunters we were meeting was Zack. I know Zack means well, just like me, but once he lost control of his bear shape and nearly killed Vegas. Rollo had to beat him down, and might have killed him if he could. Rollo doesn't have a good memory but he remembers Zack. The other hunters were Luiz and Katerina, which was nice. Luiz is funny, even if I wouldn't trust him to pick up milk without starting a catastrophe. And of course Katerina was the one who helped me get Rollo under control (more or less) in the first place. She's poised and cool-headed even when things are falling to pieces. I want to be her when I grow up. Only less Russian. Luiz had already heard from his order that the killings happened at a restaurant called "Antonio's" so that's where we went first. We found the alley where the bodies had been, but there weren't any clues, just garbage. I was going to check for ghosts with my Sight, but before I could, a waiter came out and spilled more garbage all over Luiz. Luiz wasn't happy, but when he was talking to the waiter we found out that this was the guy who had actually found the bodies. He also told us the name of a waitress who would have been working at the time the two men were killed. Vegas caught a rat so they could use it to blackmail the waitress into talking to us and I went with them, while Katerina and Zack tried to look at the alley with magic. Inside the restaurant was where things went really wrong. The rat freaked people out a whole lot, screaming and jumping on tables. All the noise and movement put Rollo on edge, but I kept him under control. I'm just glad no one else can see him (usually). His eyes glow when he's getting mad and the tentacles of his mane start whipping around like there's a strong wind. If a little rat scared the diners so bad, I don't want to think about the kind of panic Rollo would cause. Anyway, Vegas started talking to the waitress, but I could see they weren't getting anywhere so I used my Sight to look at her mind. Well, Katerina says its not the Sight exactly--she calls it telepathy--but it feels the same. To me, a living mind looks just like any other spirit. But this time I couldn't see the waitress' mind because there was something in the way, like a black wall. I tried to push through it while Vegas was asking their questions and then all of a sudden it broke and the waitress started bleeding and fell down. She was dead before we could do anything. I really kind of freaked then. I don't think I've ever killed an actual person before. Rollo has of course but that's not quite the same thing. Vegas says that this isn't the same either because it was really the person who put the black wall there who killed the waitress, not me. I'm not sure I believe them. Rollo was angry because I was scared and we had to hurry and hide in an abandoned factory building before he hurt anyone. Katerina said from what I told her about the black wall and from what Zack saw with his ritual in the alleyway (her own ritual didn't show her anything useful) that it sounded like we were dealing with a master vampire. Some of the others went to get stakes and things, and Vegas went to talk to the local mob boss. I think I forgot to mention that the dead men in alley had been working for him. I mostly sat in a corner and drank cocoa from the thermos Vegas had given me. I like Vegas. From the mob boss, Vegas learned that the vampire (the mobsters thought he was just the head of some eastern european Mafia outfit) was going to be attending the opening of "Carmen" that night and where his hotel was. We checked the hotel out but it was too heavily guarded. The wards on his rooms made me faint just from looking at them with the Sight. It was embarrassing. I'm already the youngest hunter on practically every hunt. Do I have to be a swooning heroine as well? Ugh... We went to the theatre instead and Vegas talked the security people into letting us set up a magical trap in the elevator from the special underground parking garage they keep for celebrities looking to avoid the press or vampires looking to avoid the sun. Then we went back to the apartment and waited until the vampire left. With my Sight, I could see him clearly, even through the tinted limousine windows. We trailed him to the theatre parking lot, all of us except Vegas who had stayed at the theatre so they could distract the security guard watching the cameras at the right time. The vampire didn't go straight to the theatre though. He stopped and picked up a briefcase from a strange man first. I could see in the man's mind that the briefcase held a scrap of burned paper, covered in writing in a strange language. At the theatre, things almost went to plan. The vampire got into our elevator trap. Katerina froze him and his two bodyguards in place with an ice spell and Luiz went to cut his head off with a sword. He hit him, right in the neck too, but that old vampire was tough. The sword didn't even go halfway through! And the vampire was strong too. Before Luiz could try again, he had ripped his way out of the ice and knocked poor Luiz out of the elevator. Fortunately, Zack stepped in. He turned into his bear shape and wrestled the vampire to the floor. I wanted to help, but with the two of them thrashing about in that little space, there wasn't really room for another person. But Rollo isn't a person. I called him and he came. Even your sleeping eyes could have seen him, though he'd have just been a dark blur, like the shadow of a great hunting cat. Rollo pounced on the vampire, passing through Zack as though he wasn't there, and sank his fangs into his dead flesh. The vampire clawed Rollo. I don't know how he did it, but he did. Rollo howled and I howled with him. It felt like talons raking through my brain. I didn't see Katerina pin the vampire's clawed arms down with more ice or Luiz struggle back to his feet just in time to stake the trapped monster through the heart. All I could see was redness, dark and wet and squirming, pushing its way through the gashes in my mind. Then Vegas was with me. They had their arms around me and were rocking me gently back and forth, back and forth. After a moment, I was able to stand up again. We got out of there pretty quickly, all except for Katerina, who stayed to wipe the memories of the bodyguards. I think she might have gotten caught on camera, but she had an illusion disguising her face. She and Luiz seemed very interested by the scrap of paper in the briefcase. Now Vegas and I are at another motel. They're already asleep in the bed next to mine, getting some rest before the long drive back to Nevada. Their breathing is deep and peaceful. Rollo, who never sleeps, is curled at the foot of my bed, licking his insubstantial wounds. Its time for me to put this journal away and turn off my lamp. The darkness beckons.